


The Void

by AineTheSolarGoddess



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Drama, I'm sorry for everything, M/M, everyone dies literally, inevitable mistakes, insane punctuation, many years passed since canon, my own fic translated from my native into english, so many tears, they are happy afterlife i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-23 12:11:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8327341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AineTheSolarGoddess/pseuds/AineTheSolarGoddess
Summary: Anders knew for sure that life always repeats itself.





	

Anders was scurrying. Slipped on blood-covered stone slabs, clung to the charred walls.

He needs to be there in time.

The attempt to heal his own leg ended in nothing but a headache, piercing his brain with a rusty needle of unbearable pain. There wasn’t a single gram of magic left. He had nothing left…

No mana, no health poultice, no lyrium potion. However, over the last two hours he had drunk down a dozen of them at least – if he doesn’t go hence planted on a templar’s blade, he’d definitely die a painful death from lyrium intoxication.

The mage just went ahead, obstinately, without thinking, without stopping. Just forward, not knowing what to hope for. His hope should have perished long ago - disappeared under the ruins of Magi Circles, under the cornerstones knocked out of ancient walls, under the pressure of wrath and hatred he felt towards those who has a banner of a flaming sword on their chests. But it was still alive, clinging by its weak roots to the last stronghold of faith in his soul, bending over the edge of Abyss, one step away from falling into the Void.

It lived. And only one man was keeping it up.

It was him they’re going to – trapped, but not broken, turned from Champion to Traitor. He was last hope for all of them. He glowed, shone from the skies, but not like a sizzling sun of the ancient prophetess but as a soft warm light of faith. Faith in his own strength and the strength of his friends.

“We will save him at any cost”.

But what will Garrett say when he learns what it turned out to be – that _cost_?

Varric’s chest was pierced through with a huge Templar sword. Anders, already exhausted, didn’t even have time to uncork a bright-blue potion flask with his trembling fingers – the last Trade Prince of Kirkwall whimpered briefly and tailed off. They just left him there, not able, _not having a right_ to stop. Left him lying on dusty mud-yellow stones of the alley, hugging his beloved Bianca.

Merrill, and Isabela who rushed for her, were simply blown away by a roaring human ocean - split, scattered, divided. _Demolished_. Anders could barely grab an outstretched hand with his almost unmoving fingers. They got bloody immediately: sharp claws of the infamous silver glove still served its master well. Fenris, always angry, always “I-hate-mages” Fenris stayed a few minutes later to cover his back – alone, against a mad and metal-sparkling crowd. He rushed right into the heart of this growling pack of church dogs, eyes filled with lyrium and seeing neither friends nor foes. The last thing Anders remembered was a short nod and a gloomy “Go already”, and then his legs themselves made a beeline for a wrecked base of Gallows.

Garrett’s mabari became his only remaining companion, faithful to the very end – it pulled the mage, almost unconscious, by the skirt of his robe, pushed him from under his knees, its sonorous bark tearing the healer out of the depth of salty tears and endless bitterness. And fell, silent, clenching powerful jaws on the throat of the defeated enemy till the last second of its life. An injured fragmented paw twitched slightly as if also saying this notorious “GO”. Go, hurry, be in time! At least you – BE THERE IN TIME.

The mage moved by fits, trying not to step on the crippled leg, leaned on the staff. It burned in his hands, flared, wanted to be by his _true_ owner’s side. When Anders found it abandoned in the corner of their ruined house – this strange fantasy of an unknown blacksmith mage – his first thought was to break it, burn, turn to ashes this useless wooden stick, which couldn’t even protect its owner. But the staff suddenly flashed a translucent red stone on its crown, and the healer realized – Garrett didn’t want to be protected. What he was said, what he was threatened with, Anders doesn’t know that either. And now, all that is left to him was lagging behind like a wounded halla, bumping into rocks with a long sharp blade of this ridiculous weapon. Garrett laughed at him, saying “You don’t understand, Sunshine!”, and tried to show this silly piece of crap as “the staff of Great Parlathan”. The healer always snorted, seeing that look of a burning righteous anger on his lover’s face. And answered back that even if it is the case, then “great” should have definitely been turned into “crazy”, since no one sane can use this not-staff-not-spear thing.

Now, without magic, Anders understood. Even knowing his total incapacity to swing swords, the healer chopped the heads off right and left. A light, hungry for battle and blood, magical item moved in his hands by its own, turned in the desired direction, cutting into flesh, entering into bone like a hot knife in butter. It was a truly amazing weapon – impatient, wild, like Garrett himself. Striving to him. And snuggling gently to the mage’s broken fingers just as carefully as it was done by its owner.

But Anders managed to lose even it.

The last remaining Templar knight on his path was surprisingly persistent. Or Anders was just too tired – there was no time to think it over. The mage blocked a powerful blow and was able to hit back, deadly, but after it the enchanted pole in his hands sparkled shortly and burst with a billion shards, falling onto cold cobblestone.

He finally entered the sought-for room with something in his hands that now could be called anything but “staff”. The Sword of Parlathan, maybe – the lower part of an old staff, with a short wooden handle and the remnants of blood-red twine on it.

Anders knew for sure that life always repeats itself.

So was the Maker’s will, so was its fabric weaven for thousands of endless centuries.

People always believed that if you ask sincerely from your heart, something bad that happened before, would never strike again.

In fact, people were right.

But after the foot of the first Magister’d stepped onto the pavement of the Golden City, the Maker became deaf to their pleas.

Garrett was standing beside the wall – safe and sound, not even cuffed. It was quiet and empty all around, but it didn’t even bother the healer. Anders grinned, blinking the tears away, and croaked up:

\- I came. Garrett… I came…

\- I’m very pleased to see you again, Anders.

The healer stared at his shaking hands mindlessly. He was torn, shattered, blinded. A low whimper burst out of his chest as a nervous giggle. The first. Then the second. The third.

Anders didn’t even need to look. He knows this amazingly-unemotional intonation. He knows perfectly that his beloved, his _fate_ , his _everything_ , now has a brightly burning sixteen-ray andrastian Sun on his forehead. _He knows perfectly_ …

Everything repeats itself, everything. Everything comes again, suffers again. Hurts again. Everything, everything, everything.

Justice - silent for years, cured, _disinfected_ by Garrett’s boundless love, free from the blight of relentless wrath of his carrier, hiding in confusion in the depths of his soul – tossed and howled inside, like a distraught wild beast. Hunted down and having lost all that was precious to him. **Just let them show themselves. Let them come, will they dare?**

He begs for free will for the first time, long, painfully long and happy years later.

And Anders releases him.

_Everything repeats itself._

Unchanging, eternal punishment for his sins.

A few Templars ambushed a second later. They were taking refuge here, waiting, hiding, like cowardly whelps. And they were swept away… no, torn apart by stored up force. The blood and the spirit in Anders howl and boil, weep and wail. Shriek.

But nothing can be changed.

Everything repeats itself, everything. And he was late _again_.

Anders can only hope that the power of Justice will have the same effect like it was long ago – will return him the lost, for a brief moment, a measly minute. Please, please, he needs to see Hawke once more.

Garrett, left completely untouched by the force swirling here a moment ago, flinches and blinks, and looks at Anders. Looks like he always did – right in the eyes, carefully, with a light spark of red flame in an amber sea.

\- Hello, my precious.

Anders is hobbling towards him, clutching at his shoulder, ruffling his hair. And crying. Silently. Dementedly. The last hope - that weak, wilted flower growing inside of him - shivers and falls, taking the last clods of frozen, blood-soaked soil with it, to the Abyss.

And only the Void remains.

Garrett looks at him with sympathy, forlorn and painful, full of endless love. He understands everything. Sees and knows everything. Like saw and knew long before that.

\- You understand what you need to do, huh? – He smiles, gently stroking the scratched bleeding temple of his personal Sunshine. A nice cute nickname now gives a bitter taste of desperate irony. – Do it and go away. I love you.

Anders shakes his head, squints and trembles from soundless cries. Garrett frowns – his personal healer just can’t but realize, right? But the mage laughs raucously, almost hysterically,. Then _hugs_ him, tights him even closer and says quickly, as if being chased:

\- I cannot leave, Garrett. I can’t. I have nowhere to go anymore.

\- Anders…

\- They are gone, Garrett. Do you understand? They are gone! – The whisper wobbles and Garrett hears the answer before it sounds out. – No one is here anymore, Garrett. Neither Varric nor Isa nor… Anyone!

Hawke exhales slowly:

\- Anyway…

His eyes suddenly become glassy and dull. The body almost not feeling anything, when pierced from behind by a painfully familiar blade, wide but thin and curved. But he feels the push, a gentle pressure of someone’s else body. And his own blade, growing up from his chest, continues its journey – it’s got another goal.

\- I’m leaving with you…

Smiling through tears, Anders squeezes cold metal even tighter with deeply wounded fingers. It must not accidentally slide down before it fulfills its purpose.

Then Anders jerks forward and kisses Garrett.

This kiss on the verge of conscious is filled with bitterness and salt.

Hawke looks at the blade, tearing a hole in his and someone else’s back, and somehow… smiles.

\- Nice staff, Beardie. Reappraised it.

Anders laughs. Hawke laughs along with him, choking on black blood. And freezes. Almost immediately.

“Finally”.

And then, pinned together with icy enchanted metal, they are blinded by an unusually bright bluish light. And covered tightly with a suffocating blanket of darkness. Holding hands, they fall in a dream, from which they’ll not be able to return.

There, in reality, the city is crumbling around them. It seems that the heavy, dry land itself just can't stand what is happening on it. It has been patient for a very, very long time… And no longer intends to.

But the mages haven’t seen it, and won’t see ever again.

Nor a resounding explosion, turning the ancient Gallows and infamous slave statues to stinky dust.

Nor a shattered from the destructive powers island carcass.

Nor wide cracks, slithering through the alleys.

Gone to Darkness, together, side by side, as they always have – both didn’t even turn around, when a screaming from pain, cursed by humans and gods black-stoned Kirkwall, the City of Eternal Chains, fell behind their back into the bottomless Void.

**Author's Note:**

> Yay, I finally managed to translate it^^ I hope, I didn't spoil the impression by mistakes, I really hope so :) Feel free to tell about them nevertheless
> 
> And yeah, I cry every time I re-read it T_T Poor me, you and my damn ill fantasy


End file.
